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Alaina Getzenberg
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Building a connection with the players around him has always been important to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Even when he was in high school in Firebaugh, California, Allen would gather his wide receivers and running backs to practice in the summer. The idea came from something his offensive coordinator Mike Martinez told him — to prioritize the “before and after,” being there for his teammates between the plays.
Allen took that idea and began initiating extra work, including staying after the unofficial practice, to repeat routes. There were occasions when the receivers wanted to go home, but Allen would ask them to stay, to also get in the work.
In similar fashion, Allen organized a workout in Nashville in July, as he has in the past, with all of the Bills receivers, running backs and tight ends before training camp. Allen still connects with his teammates today by leading the charge and reinforcing bonds — especially in a season when a majority of the receiver room was filled with new faces.
The Bills’ offseason saw the departure of five of eight captains (although safety Micah Hyde re-signed to the practice squad in December). Allen, by all accounts from coaches and teammates, has taken on an enhanced leadership role this season in a way he hadn’t in the first six years of his NFL career.
The two-time All-Pro has approached being a franchise quarterback by making an effort to become more consistent and vocal as the team around him has evolved. He now heads to his second AFC Championship Game on Sunday (6:30 p.m. EST, CBS) with a chance to play in his first Super Bowl.
Who is Josh Allen, the leader? And how has he grown in command? ESPN asked those who have witnessed Allen’s leadership and growth, up close and personal.
Firebaugh era
Firebaugh High School | Firebaugh, California
2010-2014
“Anytime that you were on his team, you had an opportunity to win, no matter what it was.”
Markus Espinoza says he has known Allen since he was 5 or 6 years old. In those 20-plus years, Allen has always been known as a natural-born leader but, Espinoza says, Allen has also always had a fiery sense of competition.
“Anytime that you were on his team, you had an opportunity to win, no matter what it was,” Espinoza said. “If it was football, baseball, basketball, checkers, card games. I mean, he wanted to win in everything that he did.”
Espinoza and Allen were on a number of teams together, but it was during Espinoza’s senior baseball season he says he saw Allen take that next step.
The pivotal moment was the California Interscholastic Federation sectional semifinal game against Corcoran High School to end the 2011-12 season. Down 4-3 in the seventh and final inning, Allen was Firebaugh’s last batter. He was one of two sophomores playing for the Eagles.
Allen proceeded to foul off about 15 pitches, Espinoza says, battling for a hit to prolong the game. Ultimately, he struck out. Espinoza remembers Allen breaking down in tears, and saying he wanted to win for the seniors.
“The special thing about Josh is, [he’s] where his feet are planted, that’s always where his mind is at,” Espionza said. “His feet are planted right there in that batter’s box, on that team, and he wanted that team specifically to move on, and I think he felt like he let us down, but to me it proved a lot of grit, a lot of extreme leadership qualities.”
Allen was always positive and inclusive in his praise. Espinoza recalls Allen would say, “Hey, we’re going to win the championship this year. We’re going to do it all this year.”
Espinoza, noting the overall talent level on some of those teams, says he would think, “Man, I don’t think you guys are.”
But Allen maintains a belief that his team can win.
In this case, the confidence was justified as the Firebaugh baseball team went on to win the section championship the following season.
“He is about as confident a person, and not in a cocky way, I mean just very confident in himself,” Espinoza said. “And I think that just pours off into others when they see it being done and demonstrated.”
“I heard him yelling some stuff that if it would’ve been in front of me, I would’ve made him bear-crawl and do pushups in front of the stands. But he got ’em fired up.”
Allen liked to talk trash even back in his high school days, and once (or twice) that resulted in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. As a consequence, Allen’s high school football coach Bill Magnusson would force Allen to bear-crawl a couple of hundred yards and have the offensive line do it with him at the next practice.
“If one of you loses your cool, the whole team gets penalized,” Magnusson recalled saying. “So you guys can thank Josh for that one, and you can ask him to change his diapers and grow up or keep doing it.”
After one or two bear-crawl sentences, Allen figured out what not to do.
In Allen’s senior year, Firebaugh was in the CIF semifinals against Immanuel High School, which featured a talented running back named Khalil Montgomery. Magnusson told Allen there would be a time when Immanuel would figure out Firebaugh’s defensive plan and adjust, and that Allen would need to keep pace.
Magnusson was right. Firebaugh had given up the lead by the end of the third quarter and Montgomery had become unstoppable in a game in which he would finish with 394 rushing yards.
Magnusson took Allen aside in the fourth quarter.
“I told Josh, ‘Take the team down to the far end of the field. I’ll call a timeout.’ … And I said, ‘There’ll be no coaches there. It’ll just be you and the team.’ … I mentioned, like, ‘Hey, we didn’t practice out here five or six days of the week in 110-degree weather all summer to lose a home playoff game.'”
Allen understood.
“I heard him yelling some stuff that if it would’ve been in front of me, I would’ve made him bear-crawl and do pushups in front of the stands,” Magnusson recalls. “But he got ’em fired up, ended up winning 52-40.”
Reedley era
Reedley Community College | Reedley, California
2014
“Don’t worry about it, Coach. You’re good.”
Allen was a zero-star recruit coming out of Firebaugh with no offers. He ended up attending Reedley, a community college near Fresno, California, with the hope of creating more game tape to get the attention of larger programs.
While at Reedley, one of Allen’s teammates was kicked out of his dorm. Coach Ernie Rodriguez asked if Allen would mind if his teammate could stay in his apartment for a week.
“Don’t worry about it, Coach. You’re good,” Rodriguez recalled Allen saying.
Rodriguez said one week turned into two, and two became three. Allen’s teammate ended up staying for about a month, with Allen helping him with meals, and Rodriguez says Allen never asked for anything in return, never complained or charged rent.
The questions about who Allen was as a football player often come up from his time at Reedley. He didn’t start right away or have “full control of the team” as Rodriguez described. He did take on extra work with the offensive players to show them he knew what to do.
With all of that on-field work, it wasn’t the football that stood out the most to his former coach.
“It’s the person, the guy who he was, that’s important,” Rodriguez said.
Wyoming era
University of Wyoming | Laramie, Wyoming
2015-17
“Just be ready.”
Allen’s short time at Reedley was accompanied by a growth spurt — he went from 6-foot-3,180 pounds his senior year of high school to 6-5, 215. When Wyoming coaches came to town to recruit one of Allen’s teammates, they were persuaded by Rodriguez to take a look at the quarterback. Coach Craig Bohl and his staff were impressed enough to give Allen a scholarship.
Allen took his leadership skills to Laramie. When Wyoming wide receiver John Okwoli had tough days trying to learn the offense as a freshman in 2016, Okwoli says Allen encouraged him to keep at it. Okwoli got more of an opportunity the next season when starting receiver James Price was injured. Allen gave Okwoli confidence by telling him to expect the ball. “Just be ready,” Allen said.
One time before a game against New Mexico, Allen picked up Okwoli in his white Dodge Ram truck. “Hey, you ready to go out and make a play this weekend? I need you to score. I need to get you in the end zone, ready to go score?” Allen asked.
That weekend, Okwoli scored his first career touchdown in a 42-3 win.
“I thank God every day that I was able to go to Wyoming at the same time as him,” Okwoli said. “… He should have never went there. He should have went to a Power 5 school. That’s the type of talent that he had.”
“He is really big on just building the quarterback-receiver relationship.”
Allen also made sure he supported players who weren’t on the field at Wyoming. Receiver C.J. Johnson was going through his redshirt year in 2015 and not enjoying the year off — he was accustomed to playing.
Johnson didn’t know if he was going to keep playing football and would refuse to participate when Allen asked him to join workouts or throwing sessions.
Allen didn’t give it up.
“I eventually was like, ‘You know what? I can’t just give up. I have to buy in,'” Johnson said. “And so, spring ball is when [Allen and I] really got close because … I started playing a lot, and he is really big on just building the quarterback-receiver relationship.”
“He seemed like best friends with everyone on the team.”
Allen’s camaraderie with teammates was such that former roommate Adam Pilapil, now the linebackers coach at Colorado State, uses it as an example when recruiting. “He made an effort that mattered, and I always try to emulate that,” Pilapil said. “Treat everybody like they’re a rock star, and I think you kind of get that back in spades.”
Wyoming quarterback Cameron Coffman echoed those sentiments.
“He seemed like best friends with everyone on the team,” said Coffman, who originally came to Wyoming as the starter in 2015. “It didn’t matter what religion you were, what color you were, it seemed like everyone was Josh’s best friend.”
Many of Allen’s friendships extended beyond the field.
Wyoming running back Milo Hall and Allen were roommates for two years. In 2016, one of Hall’s older brothers died. Every day, Allen made sure to support his roommate.
“He was always checking up on me, always making sure I was in a good mood, and he was just going the extra mile just to be that brother and that teammate and that friend,” Hall said. “So, that was a big moment in my life and something that to this day I thank Josh [for].”
Buffalo Bills era
Buffalo, New York
2018-Present
“He’s out there talking junk, that’s when he’s in his zone, that’s when he’s doing his best and just a hell of a football player.
Hyde, the Bills safety who has been there for every season of Allen’s career, points to 2020 as the year the quarterback started growing into his leadership role. Hyde signed as a free agent in 2017, the year before the Bills drafted Allen at No. 7.
Allen wasn’t named the Bills’ starter as a rookie. He joined a team of veteran leaders who had just broken a historic playoff drought. But Allen’s role would expand as his numbers improved.
His presence in the locker room became more established in a 2020 season when his completion percentage jumped from 58.8% to 69.2%.
“He started kind of getting in more and more of a leadership role, obviously having a very good football team, and that’s when he started putting up big numbers,” Hyde said.
But it was in the 2024 season when Hyde saw Allen, now without several veterans including former No. 1 receiver Stefon Diggs, take his role even further.
“I don’t think it was until this year that [the] whole thing came full circle and he had to be ‘that guy,'” Hyde said. “I think this organization is built for him to do that now.”
Hyde said that the biggest difference is how Allen presents himself. Hyde noticed while watching the majority of the season from his couch in San Diego before rejoining the Bills late in the season.
“Just his demeanor, the way he prepares … on the TV you can see when Josh is really like, he’s flexing on people,” Hyde said. “He’s out there talking junk, that’s when he’s in his zone, that’s when he’s doing his best and just a hell of a football player.”
“Allen bears the weight of this whole city on his shoulders and he does it gracefully and very humbly.”
Allen’s voice can be heard in the locker room, and also in offensive meetings on Fridays in which he has been “very adamant,” as tight end Dawson Knox described, about hearing which plays the players would like to run.
Allen had previously given an occasional pregame speech, but he has been doing them every week this season. He also gives separate speeches for the offense and to the skill position players. They have certainly resonated.
“His pregame speeches are on point. He’s been doing a great job” Knox said.
The content of those speeches? Well, the players aren’t letting that leave the locker room.
“He’s been incredible. We look to him as our leader,” Knox said. “The whole team does, not just the offense, and I mean, he bears the weight of this whole city on his shoulders and he does it gracefully and very humbly.”
Long snapper Reid Ferguson — one of three remaining players from Allen’s first season in 2017 — said that Allen’s “ability and willingness” to be vocal is an area where he has grown.
Allen said he was a better leader at this point in his career than he has ever been.
“The confidence in myself again, I’m in a spot in my career, in my life, where it’s the best I’ve ever felt, and again, just making sure that I’m being me and only me. … That’s one of the main things of being a leader, is making sure that you know who you are.”
That impact has allowed this Bills team to take on Allen’s qualities: being themselves and locking in on the field in pursuit of their first Super Bowl in more than 30 years.
“His competitiveness and then his drive to really bring everyone along with him,” Bills co-captain and linebacker Terrel Bernard said. “… He’s still light and funny and all that stuff, but when it’s time to go, it’s time to go and you can see that with him … his leadership and his mentality is kind of infectious for the whole team.”
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